Dollar account in Argentina banks

Try sending pesos wiuth Remitly

@alwish1

The short answer is yes. It's possible. The more responsible answer is NO, NO, NO!!! DON'T DO IT. First of all, where are these dollars coming from? If you're thinking wire transfer... BIG mistake!! Argentine law requires that they immediately convert dollars to pesos and the only way you will get them back into dollars is using what they call the MEP dollar at a VERY different rate which basically allows the Argentine government to steal half of the dollars. Second... whatever rules that they have today, will change tomorrow with no apologies. Third, Argentina has a very bad history of dealing with dollars stored in bank accounts (see the crisis of 2000)... and the economy is not looking much better today than it did then. In some ways, it's looking worse. Your dollars would be safer stored in your mattress! No... I'm not exaggerating or joking. The vast majorit of Argentines convert any savings into dollars the best way that they can and they store them in the safest way they can think of, which is NOT in banks!! Argentines are not stupid. They are actually very clever and creative people. They have to be when they've lived their lives dealing in such a corrupt and unstable environment.

I'm not just blowing smoke. I've lived in Argentina and run a business here for almost two decades and have a lot of Argentine family that have lived here all their lives. There is NO WAY, NO WAY, I would store dollars in an Argentine bank account. The only exception to that was that I tried for a while moving dollars to Argentina in a business where the source of income had to be shown legally coming into the country (only a month's worth of expenses at a time) and I thought it may be advantageous to have the money denominated in dollars instead of immediately converted into pesos to counteract inflation. It turns out the bank is smarter than that. When I converted the dollars to pesos as I needed them, they converted the dollars to pesos at a much lower rate than they would have given me if I had just denominated the account in pesos and converted it all at once. I closed the dollar account after a few months and when I saw what was going on.

I hope this help! Best of luck to you!

Nobody answered my Question on Remitly

Its like Western Union,only better rates.

According to the remitly site ,you can convert to Pesos at a Blue rate (approx. 1.6 times the official "mid point" rate) for "pick Up" at designated sites. Iti is done through an intermediatery bank in Mexico. XE.com and other money transfer sites  have the same service with transfers to Argentina.

You can then supposedly pick up the pesos at pick up points in Argentina.

You can do this too (pick up without bank account) in Colombia, but it is a hassle, as the limits at non-bank locations is extremely low, and there are restrictions and limits at banks, which have higher limits, like $1000 a transfer or $3,000 a month for pickups

Opening a bank account and transferring money directly to banks is another option, that works well (at least for now) in Colombia, but the Colombian Tax Agency DIAN, suposedly keep watch on this, but this seems to be over blown paranoia by expats on expat forums-at least at this point

So the question remains- can you do international transfers converted to Argentinian Pesos by Remitly or XE,com into Argentinian bank accounts? Can you open a bank account in Argentina with just a passport? Or do you need a visa /cedula?

Has anyone in Argentina used Remitly or other giros internacionales, either for pick up or bank deposit, or just Western Union for pick up?

My understanding is the conversion is made by the intermediary bank in Mexico, and the bank recieves payments in Pesos , or local currency, not $USD or $CAD, or $EUROS or whatever currency you are converting from in your home bank account.

@alwish1 Let me answer it this way.... Argentines that understand the Argentine banking system VERY well.... do NOT keep their money in Argentine accounts denominated in dollars. The money that they have in peso denominated accounts, they immediately spend or they use it to buy dollars in cuevas (caves / the black market) Forget about it. The problems with what you are asking are too complex to go into in an online forum like this, but believe me, as someone that has lived and worked in Argentina for almost 20 years, you don't want to do it.

Let me add to that. I've had signature authority on a peso denominated account for many years in Argentina for business purposes and in my role for a US company, because that's a completely different question with completely different factors and restrictions. BUT, I have NEVER, EVER had a personal account in Argentine banks, in pesos or in dollars, nor do I want one. If you are going to live in Argentina... figure out the best method of moving money to Argentina at the best value and live on a cash basis. It's not hard because Argentina is a very cash-based society. The hard part is figuring out how not to get killed for the cash that you have on hand, or at least the cash that you are perceived to have on hand.... just being honest.

Here’s a simpler answer.  You can’t open a bank account in Argentina unless you have residency. So it doesn’t matter whether you use remitly or WU or whatever, you can’t transfer into a bank account.

@Jwoddis hello can tell me more please

@Jwoddis thanks. They have the same rule in Colombia but some banks ignore thevrule and let you open up a bank account with just a passport.

My intent would be to get residency there.

As far as doing the wire , my best bet would be to.phone remitly themselves, although sometimes they tell.you one thing and do another.

As far as money at pick up points  even in Colombia it can get complicated ..limits  etc. They try to discourage it

If I remember  Davavienda wont let you doit without a Cédula and BancoColombia was making it more diifgicult as well

Maybe thats why everyone uses WU.there

@nico peligro Lots of typos there and I came back too late to edit.